Talking Points #2

Aria by Richard Rodriguez & Teaching Multilingual Children by Virginia Collier

     These articles initially seemed very unlike our previous readings but they have the same overall concept.  People are often ostracized because of their race, class, gender or sexuality but people who can't speak the same language as the people who hold the "power" feel the same way.  Relating back to the card game, I remember feeling angry at first.  No one seemed to understand the same rules that I understood, but once I realized that we had different rules and were essentially speaking different languages, I was more accepting of the other players rules.


     This is a video of Antonio Graceffo teaching in an ESL classroom.  He shows some ways that he gets his students to respond to him in English. Going along with Collier, "Teach the standard form of English and students' home language together with an appreciation of dialect differences to create an environment of language recognition in the classroom", you have to do more than just teach students English. You need to acknowledge that the languages are different and allow the student to recognize it themselves, but then teach the students to embrace the difference.
     Collier states in her article "Don't teach a second language in any way that challenges or seeks to eliminate the first language."  A students culture directly ties into the language that they speak. The same way that any teacher would need to be culturally competent, I think an ESL teacher would need to be more sensitive to differences in cultures and this article touches upon just that. ESL Classroom and Cultural Sensitivity
     The following article gives more ways to aid in the success of an ESL student - ways to make their transition and the learning process itself easier and more enjoyable. Success for ESL Students


      This is my favorite of the videos I've watched relating to ESL.  It may be common knowledge, but the game he plays with the children is a great way to get the students to speak in English.  They're forced to use their own words in English to describe the item and it's uses.
     In class I would like to bring up one of my first realizations after reading both articles.  As an ESL teacher, all of the pressure is put on you as the teacher, to teach the student as well and as fast as you can - but what Rodriguez seems to say is that it's just as much up to the student as it is to the teacher.  Rodriguez fought learning English, he enjoyed the security of his home spoken Spanish, but one day he decided to allow himself to speak English.  Had he not chosen to do so, he would have remained a solely Spanish speaking student in a English speaking society.